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V 



THINKING IN THE HEART 

OR 

EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION, 



BY 



Kate Atkinson Boehme. 



•» • " * o J3 a 



Washington, D. C m 

National Publishing Company, 

1902. 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONCRES8, 
1N«o Gowws Recsived 

OCT, fg "1902 

CnoVRlOMT ENTRY 

CLASS C*-XXa No, 
COPY 3. ' 






Copyright, 1902, 
By KATE ATKINSON BOEHME. 



THINKING IN THE HEART; 

OR 
EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION* 



LESSON I. 




In my experience with students I find that 
one and all ask help for stronger realization. 
All seem to know that mental action is aimless 
and void unless it tends toward a truer under- 
standing of Life as it is, and not as it seems. 
To get away from the seeming and into the 
reality is to walk the path of realization. 



6 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OR, 

Have you not seen a child reaching out to a 
bit of flickering sunshine on the floor, and have 
you not smiled indulgently at its baby efforts 
to grasp the golden plaything? Your smile is 
born of superior wisdom, but you are just as 
ignorant of that which attracts you, now, at 
your stage of the game, as is that baby on the 
floor. There was a time when you also cried 
and kicked in childish rage and disappointment 
because you could not seize a bit of sunshine in 
your chubby little palm. And here you are 
chasing it still. No longer, as in your baby days, 
do you creep after it, for with the growth of 
years you have developed the power of running, 
and so you follow in swift pursuit your fleck of 
sunshine all over the world — and never grasp it! 

Hence it follows that you are either crabbed 
and embittered or else saddened and melan- 
choly. From start to finish the sunshine you 
sought to grasp was a bit of happiness, but al- 
ways and ever it turned to illusion just as your 
hand closed upon it. You have reached the 
darkness of night. The sun has set and there is 
no longer the tiniest speck of sunshine for you 
to follow. So you say and think, but, O, child in 
the house of truth, do you not know that the 
sun does not sink to rise no more ? To-morrow 
is coming and with it the sun. Possibly the 
clouds may obscure it, but there is another day 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 7 

after that. There is not a weather bureau in 
existence which will predict cloudy days for- 
ever, and there is a perfect analogy between the 
physical and mental world, so I am sustained by 
science in my fair-weather prediction. Some- 
how, somewhen, somewhere, your sun will 
rise and shine, whether you believe it or not. 

But you never can grasp sunshine in your 
hand. That has been your mistake. Moreover, 
it would not do you any good if you could so 
grasp it, for sunshine, by virtue of its fine, 
etheric nature, permeates you and fills you with 
its life-giving power, which it could not do 
if solid enough to be held in your hand. Do not 
quarrel with the sunshine for being just what 
it is, but place yourself in a certain relation to 
it and receive its influx. 

And now look at the diagram which heads 
this lesson while I explain it to you. It is that 
of a radiant figure set in a dark background, and 
I have chosen it to represent a central truth in 
the law of Being. This truth is that God and 
Man are one. If you can get a realizing sense 
of this you are on the path of realization. You 
will notice that as the rays from the centre push 
outward they grow narrower, until finally they 
reach a point, and just for the purpose of illus- 
tration I am going to suppose that this point of 
the ray represents the mind of man before it 



8 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OK, 

has much knowledge of Reality. Let the dark 
background stand for negation or matter and 
you will see that the mind at this stage of its 
unf oldment has not at its command so much of 
the central light as it must possess when active 
in the wider and ever-widening ray as you 
trace it toward the centre. 

Now, right here I wish to make an impor- 
tant distinction between consciousness and the 
thinking process. They seem at first to be 
one and the same, but they are not, for I can 
think and be conscious of myself as thinking, 
or I can think and not be conscious of that 
thinking. For instance, I may set out to give 
my undivided attention to a subject, and after 
a few moments of concentrated thought, off 
goes my attention to one or more extraneous 
subjects, and I busy myself with them until I 
pull myself together with a start and discover 
that I have strayed away from my subject. 
J During the interval of thinking I was not con- 
scious of the straying, but now I know of it. 
Undoubtedly there are mental operations con- 
tinually going on in me of which I am not con- 
scious, for I am a much larger being than I 
formerly supposed myself to be. How large, 
do you ask? Why, as large as Infinity itself, 
for I am It and It is I. We are interchange- 
able terms; one in essence, but dual in the sense 
of being expressed or unexpressed. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 9 

If consciousness is awake only at the point 
of the ray, then I seem to be but a small being, 
but with a wider consciousness comes a wider 
sense of being; and so on until I come to the 
place where the ray joins the centre, which is 
the place of All-Consciousness. There, you and 
I are one, but all along the ray consciousness 
we seem to be two, and hence arise our rela- 
tions one with another. We act and react upon 
the external side of life, impelled to it by the 
sense of separation. All this is right and beau- 
tiful when back of it lies the knowledge of one- 
ness of essence. Without that knowledge of 
unity in variety discord reigns, causing unrest 
of mind and disease of body. As a man think- 
eth in his heart, you know, so is he; therefore 
it makes a great difference to you what you 
think in your heart. 

What does it mean to think in your heart? 
Does it mean anything more than thinking in 
your mind? Yes, it does. To think in your 
heart is to realize. A great deal of the process 
we call thinking has no more life in it than the 
rattling of dry peas in a pod, but thinking in 
the heart is live thinking or realization. 

If you therefore think of yourself as a little 
pigmy which has somehow come into this world, 
with no more self-generative power than an 
automaton, you will believe yourself to be a 



10 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

weak thing indeed; a mere football to be kicked 
about by circumstances, a mechanical toy like 
the doll which cries when you touch a spring, 
or the horse which walks when you wind up its 
machinery and stops when it runs down. 

To know that you wind up your own ma- 
chinery, or better still, that you are the power- 
house behind all action, and controlling it, is 
to think in your heart, from whence are the 
issues of life. 

Remember, there is but one Being, although 
there are many expressions of that Being, and 
those expressions we call human beings. Trace 
every one of these beings back to the source, 
and they all come from it in a continuous flow, 
not separated in the least from that with which 
they are one. 

If you can grasp this idea, though ever so 
faintly, you will begin to feel a greater sense 
of power. Consciousness will awaken at a place 
a little nearer to the central Being, at a wider 
place in the ray which we will call your human 
being. It is really Divine Being, but, as it is 
limited or expressed in form in the ray, it be- 
comes human being. 

You are doubtless familiar with the word 
Introspection, but possibly do not know what 
it means. Literally, it means to look into, or 
within. At any place in the ray consciousness, 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 11 

wherever you may find yourself, if you turn 
your attention inward, toward the central Be- 
ing, you are then introspecting. 

And what will it do for you ? What is the 
good resulting from it? Why, just this: Your 
weakest endeavor in this direction calls more 
Being into expression, so that your human be- 
ing thus becomes enlarged, strengthened and 
vitalized. Then with each accession of strength 
your introspection grows stronger, and you are 
able to make larger drawing on the Eternal 
Supply. 

It is well worth your while to take this sim- 
ple lesson and study it in connection with the 
diagram, for you will then see more clearly 
what I mean by finding your radiant centre. It 
is by getting into that centre that you begin 
to think in your heart. Your thoughts then 
become live things, and it is only when thus 
alive that they can heal disease in yourself or 
others. Only when thus alive can they create 
for you the peace which passeth understanding 
and the prosperity which shall beautify and 
enrich your life. 

Do not be impatient if a great flood of il- 
lumination does not come to you at the first. 
Sometimes it does so come, but more frequently 
not. Calmness and expectancy never fail to 
bring the longed-for result in time, because you 



12 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OR, 

are working with the law; and that law is, that 
every human being shall come into the knowl- 
edge of its radiant centre. The path is not 
hard. Just a little quiet introspection each 
day, and there will dawn within you an ever- 
widening light, which will at last unfold into 
the perfect day. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 



LESSON IL 




(1) 



(2) 



To enter into Realization it is necessary to 
get away from the comparatively meaningless 
action which constitutes the greater part of our 
thinking. There is nothing to realize but Truth, 
and all thinking which does not move toward 
the knowledge of Truth is desultory, vague, 
purposeless, unreal and useless. You, the 
master workman, must learn how to use the 
thought machine. You must also learn how 
to let it rest, for you are not at the mercy 
of your thoughts, except as you allow yourself 
to be. You really stand behind all your thought 
action and have the power to control and direct 
it. By developing this power you acquire the 
mastery over environment. 

Edward Carpenter, in his " Visit to a Gnani," 



14 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OR, 

speaks to the point. He says: "That a man 
should be a prey to any thought that chances 
to take possession of his mind, is commonly 
among us assumed as unavoidable. It may be 
matter of regret that he should be kept awake 
all night from anxiety as to the issue of a law- 
suit on the morrow, but that he should have 
the power of determining whether he be kept 
awake or not seems an extravagant demand. 
The image of an impending calamity is no doubt 
odious, but its very odiousness (we say) makes 
it haunt the mind all the more pertinaciously, 
and it is useless to try to expel it. 

"Yes, this is an absurd position for man, the 
heir of all the ages, to be in; hag-ridden by the 
flimsy creatures of his own brain. If a pebble 
in our boot torments us, we expel it. We take 
off the boot and shake it out. And once the 
matter is fairly understood, it is just as easy to 
expel an intruding and obnoxious thought from 
the mind. About this there ought to be no 
mistake ; no two opinions. The thing is obvious, 
clear and unmistakable. It should be as easy 
to expel an obnoxious thought from your mind 
as it is to shake a stone out of your shoe; and 
until a man can do that, it is just nonsense to 
talk about his ascendency over Nature, and all 
the rest of it. He is a mere slave, and a prey 
to the bat-winged phantoms that flit through 
the corridors of his own brain." 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 15 

Carpenter then goes on to say that this 
power has long been known and practiced in the 
East, but that, like other arts, it requires 
practice to attain any degree of success, when 
it no longer remains a thing of difficulty, or 
even mystery. He continues : 

"While at work your thought is to be abso- 
lutely concentrated in it, undistracted by any- 
thing whatever, irrelevant to the matter in 
hand — pounding away like a great engine, with 
giant power and perfect economy — no wear 
and tear of friction, or dislocation of parts 
owing to the working of different forces at the 
same time. Then, when the work is finished, 
if there is no more occasion for the use of the 
machine, it must stop equally, absolutely — stop 
entirely — no worrying (as if a parcel of boys 
were allowed to play their devilments with a 
locomotive as soon as it was in the shed) — and 
the man must retire into that region of his 
consciousness where his true self dwells. 

"I say the power of the thought-machine 
itself is enormously increased by this faculty 
of letting it alone on the one hand, and of 
using it singly and with concentration on the 
other. It becomes a true tool, which a master 
workman lays down when done with, but which 
only a bungler carries about with him all the 
time to show that he is the possessor of it." 



16 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

I quote the foregoing because it bears so 
strongly upon my statement that it is possible 
to think as you decree to think, and not as you 
are apparently obliged to through heredity, 
habit, environment or any other cause com- 
monly supposed to regulate and determine 
thought action. 

Assuming this to be true, and you can prove 
it in your own individual experience, the ques- 
tion then arises — If I can direct and control 
my thinking, what shall be the manner of that 
direction and control ? Granted the power, to 
what end shall I exert it ? The answer is simple 
enough. Let your thought move to the Cos- 
mic Law. Let it begin with the nucleus of an 
organic unity. Thought, to be alive, construc- 
tive and powerful must be organic. It must 
have a central purpose and move about that 
purpose as planets about the sun. 

What shall be that central purpose ? Let us 
see. Observing again the Cosmic Law, we see 
the evolution of the many from the one. As 
one is the basis of mathematics, so is it the 
basis of all manifestation or expression. One 
is the basis of form, of proportion, of symmetry, 
of action, of all that goes to make up the ob- 
jective world. 

This is also true of the subjective world, the 
world of thought. You may be filled with thou- 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 17 

sands, yes, millions of thoughts and varying 
moods, and yet you know they are all unified 
in you. From you, the one, they proceed. You 
easily discover this, but here you stop. Nat- 
urally, however, what is true of you is true of 
your fellow-being, your brother, and so you 
find another one. As many identities as you 
discover in the world, just so many ones do you 
find. 

But there you stop, and that is the trouble 
with your thinking. You are lost in the Babel 
of multiplicity, the Babel of the confusion of 
many tongues. You have stopped short of the 
Supreme One, short of Wholeness, short of • 
Perfection, short of the Unity of Being. 

Somewhere in your mentality there stands 
something which means God or Perfection, but 
it is shut away from you. God is enshrined 
in His own perfection, and to identify yourself 
with Him seems nothing less than sacrilege. 

What is the matter? You have unified all 
that goes to make up your own being, but when 
it comes to joining yourself to all things else in 
a common unity, that fails you. There seems 
to be a separation and you can not bridge over 
the intervening chasm. 

And yet, occult science is proving day by 
day that the supposed line of demarkation, cut- 
ting off man from man, or man from animal 



18 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

and plant, is really no line at all. In its place 
is the lost link in evolution. There it is, hold- 
ing the Cosmos as a unit, though the natural 
eve be not fine enough to detect the linking. 

It is not sufficient, then, to see yourself as 
one. You must go further, and see yourself 
as one with the Universe, with God and Hu- 
manity. 

When you begin to see this you are follow- 
ing the Cosmic method and starting with one 
as the nucleus of growth. Then your thought 
energy, instead of being scattered in number- 
less directions, is called in and concentrated 
upon an organic centre. Then you begin to 
unfold from that centre as does the flower, and 
your growth becomes coherent and definite, 
having the characteristics of an organic unity. 
Previous to this, it was like the floating pro- 
toplasm, incoherent, indefinite, aimless and well 
nigh helpless. 

The world is full of these protoplasmic people 
who have not yet learned the secret of organic 
growth, and they are ever at the mercy of time 
and circumstance, but within each one lies the 
germ nucleus of the higher organism awaiting 
the stir of its potential life within. 

A basic conception underlies the thought of 
each individual, and according to the nature 
of that conception, is the character of the 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 19 

thought. If it be true, the thought is vital; if 
untrue, the thought is non-vital. The concep- 
tion to which I allude is the idea which the 
mind holds regarding itself, its nature and its 
relation to that which it believes to be the cause 
of its existence. 

To understand this better, let us revert to 
the cut at the head of this lesson. It contains 
two diagrams. No. 1 represents the false con- 
ception; No. 2 represents the true. In the first 
lesson of this series I used the diagram of a 
radiant figure to stand for the entirety of Be- 
ing. I said that there could be but the one Be- 
ing, and endeavored to show that God and Man 
must both be included in it, God being the 
centre, and Man the ray proceeding from that 
centre. This is the true conception of the one- 
ness or unity of Being including both God and 
Man. Diagram 2 in this lesson stands for this 
true conception, as I have just said, while Dia- 
gram 1 stands for the false, or mistaken con- 
ception, which represents God as an enclosed 
sphere, and Man as separate and apart from 
this sphere. In some mysterious fashion, God 
is supposed to act through intervening space 
and externally upon Man, but there is the eter- 
nal separateness and aloofness, not only be- 
tween God and Man, but between Man and 
Man. 



20 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OE, 

Is it small wonder that the mind holding 
such a conception should be painfully conscious 
of its limitation, and feel itself cut off from a 
source of supply? It would not be putting it 
too strongly to affirm that all the weakness, in- 
ability, poverty, disease and wretchedness in 
the world to-day is in some way referable to 
this false conception of the relation of Man to 
God which has held the human heart so long 
in bondage. 

When once this is set right, the whole out- 
look on life changes and all things become new. 
One then passes into a mental realm which is 
indeed a Kingdom of Heaven to the Hades of 
a former thought life. 

I can not lay too much stress upon the im- 
portance of getting this basic conception right 
to begin with. So often students write me that 
they have been studying for years, seeking that 
highest truth which shall bring them improved 
mental and physical conditions, whereas they 
only find themselves floundering more and 
more helplessly in uncertainty, doubt and gen- 
eral unhappiness. 

This ought not so to be. This most essential 
subject in the world should be made so plain 
and direct in its rendering as to reach the needs 
of all. Every mind must have its central truth 
about which to build its organic unity. When 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 21 

this is supplied, it can work to a definite pur- 
pose, and be, O, so happy in its working. 

"A diagram," says Clerk Maxwell, "is a fig- 
ure drawn in such a manner that the geometri- 
cal relations between the parts of the figure 
help us to understand relations between other 
objects." 

It is with this intent that I have used, and 
shall go on using, in these lessons geometrical 
figures as a help to elucidate my meaning. Of 
course, the blank space in the centre of the 
radiant figure but poorly represents the won- 
derful reservoir of Life from which all things 
proceed, and yet that blankness may well sym- 
bolize the unexpressed. 

Symbols are helps to thought and to realiza- 
tion, for the mind soon learns to rise from the 
symbol to the reality or the thing symbolized, 
and is thus led little by little into the under- 
standing of Life and its ever-revealing mystery. 
In the non-understanding of Life lie the mis- 
takes and the pain of living. With its under- 
standing comes increasing gladness. 

Professor Eoyce, of Harvard; Dr. Caird, of 
Glasgow University, and other thinkers of note 
whom I might mention, emphasize the fact that 
there is but One Self in the Universe, and my 
diagram of the radiant figure will serve to ex- 
plain how this can be. By following each ray 



22 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

from its point of expression to the centre, 
whence all proceed, it is evident that they are 
one. This is the One Self. It is you; it is I; 
it is all men; it is all things. 

Is this hard to realize ? It seems the simplest 
thing in the world to me now, although, I con- 
fess, there was a time when I could not under- 
stand it, and that was a time of weakness, of 
mental depression, of distrust in my own ability, 
of utter hopelessness, of the darkness of despair. 
When I heard such affirmations as — I am all 
there is ! or — I have all things now ! I was sim- 
ply stirred to an impatient contempt for the one 
who uttered anything so apparently illogical, so 
absurd. 

I could not see, and the time had not come 
for my seeing, the inner world. I had looked 
so long on things external that the reversion of 
sight which opens to the view a new and hither- 
to unsuspected world, was to me a difficult 
turning. 

Difficult though it was, I accomplished it ; but 
here let me say that this inner seeing is like the 
outer, a matter of growth. When a blind man 
suddenly receives his sight he has no idea of the 
distance between himself and that which he sees. 
Some objects seem actually pressing upon his 
eyes, and he instinctively attempts to brush 
them aside. Others, really near at hand, seem 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 23 

remote, and it requires time for him to see 
things in their true relations to each other and 
to himself. 

But he keeps on looking toward that which 
he desires to see, and in time he sees it correct- 
ly; he sees it with the understanding. 

It is just so with the inward seeing. If you 
turn your eyes toward the inner Reality, though 
you may only feel it vaguely to be there, you 
will in time see clearly, understanding^. What 
is it you see with, after all ? Is it the physical 
eye ? No, indeed ! That is only a bridge over 
which sensations walk into your consciousness, 
and so loosely put up a structure is it that all 
the finest sensations fall through it before they 
reach you. Helmholtz once said that if any 
manufacturer sent him an optical instrument so 
poorly adapted to its ends as the eye, he should 
return it as practically of little use. 

There is something behind the eye which does 
the seeing in spite of the physical imperfection 
of the eye itself. This something supplies 
more than we realize in filling in the detail of 
every image thrown upon the retina. This 
something can see independently of the eye; ab- 
solutely without its intervention. It can look 
straight to the heart of a flower and know more 
about it in one instant than it can learn from all 
the sensations coming in over the bridge. Af- 



24 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

terward, when these sensations come trooping 
in, as they will, you can understand them as 
never before, because you are getting at the 
heart of things by this growing power of the 
inner sight. 

You do not know how good and sound this 
old Universe is at the core until you begin to 
look into it. It does seem pretty miserable and 
crusty and seamed on the outside, as though it 
were all going to pieces, but it isn't going to do 
anything of the kind. It is as sound and rich 
and beautiful at the centre as anything you can 
imagine. Yes, better than anything you can now 
imagine. You will see straight into its heart 
some day, and then you will know all far better 
than I can tell you. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 25 



LESSON HL 



=— =— = H 








CZ— zzz^ 




\ ■ — 




\ ■ ■— 






/ 


\ ~ = 




V=~ - ■ ":t 


^~N^^ 


^s/^^^^" .-== 



It has been thought that man's destiny is de- 
creed by some power outside of himself. This 
has led us to speak of the hand of destiny as the 
outreach of this power, controlling a man in 
spite of his own volition. Such a conception re- 
duces him to a mere automaton, and it is small 
wonder that the strong spirits of the world have 
risen in their might against so arbitrary and 
soul-crushing a tyranny as destiny must be if 
outside of man and coercing him. 

But we have seen in our preceding lessons 



26 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OE, 

that man is inseparable from the entirety of 
Being, and that in consequence of his oneness 
with it there can be nothing outside of him to 
destinate or decree his ends since Being includes 
all there is and there can be nothing outside 
of it. 

Being controls itself and straight from its 
centre or heart to the point of the ray, which 
represents its manifestation or expression, runs 
the line of destiny. Man's life starting from 
that centre must perforce destinate itself. 

But how happens it, then, you ask, that man 
is unconscious of his destiny; that he does not 
know himself to be acting and creating con- 
tinually; that the events of each day are a reve- 
lation to him, and that a screen is ever placed 
between each day and its to-morrow % How can 
all this be? 

It happens in this way. We are screened in 
a measure from our past. Even the immediate 
yesterday cannot be wholly recalled, while the 
more remote past escapes us altogether. Mem- 
ory stops far short of the primeval form of life 
from which we are supposed to spring. What 
we know of our earliest history is largely a 
matter of inference, and who shall say that the 
outflowing of life or existence began with a bit 
of protoplasmic slime ? For my part I do not 
believe it. Why may not life have traveled 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 27 

down the spires of form as well as up them ? As 
the worm mounts, so may the God descend. Does * 
all motion begin at a given point and go in one 
direction forever? That which begins must 
end. Show me the point of departure and I 
will show you the point of arrival. One pre- 
supposes and involves the other. Life is too 
great to be circumscribed by the amoeba. We 
are forced to go beyond it in our search for a 
primal source. 

The God-Head is the fountain-head. Living 
things proceed from it and to it return, for 
motion recurs or returns upon itself in cycles. 
If man comes, in the latter instance, from the 
amoeba, in the former he came from God. 
That is the story of the fall. Not a sudden 
declension, but a gradual descent. If I have 
been the amoeba in the lower spiral I have been 
the angel in the higher. 

We have forgotten both the ascending and 
the descending, but as the awareness of psycho- 
logical states is dawning we become again cog- 
nizant of the past. The line of destiny not only 
proceeds from the heart or centre of Being, but 
returns to it again from the ray, which in 
our diagram stands for man as the expres- 
sion of God. At the turning of the line we 
begin our homeward journey toward that from 
which we came forth; and all along our course 



28 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

we come upon states of consciousness with 
which we are familiar. It is only in this sense 
that the term recognition can be used with ref- 
erence to our evolution in consciousness. To 
recognize is to re-cognize or know again, and 
recognition is therefore that act of the mind by 
which it knows again something previously 
known, but for a time absent from thought. 

Running at right angles with the double line 
of destiny extending into the ray in the diagram 
before us, you will observe cross lines. These 
are intended to divide the space in the ray into 
sections, each representing a state of conscious- 
ness. As the God-life flows out from the centre 
it actualizes itself in the section nearest the 
centre producing the highest type of existence, 
a divine being far above our present conception. 
Then the life passes out into the next section, 
and to the next, until it reaches the end of the 
ray. The number of these sections in the dia- 
gram is merely arbitrary. I do not intend to 
imply a definite number. I simply wish to show 
what I believe to be a fact, that you and I and 
all individuals have passed through states of 
consciousness on the outgoing line of destiny 
through which we are again passing on the in- 
going line. As we approach each state again 
it is like the hearing of a beautiful but partly 
forgotten song, the song of Divinity, stirring 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 29 

the secret recesses of the soul to a remem- 
brance of its long-lost Eden. 

At the heart of the universe there is perfec- 
tion. Were it not so it must fall to pieces like 
a decayed apple; and from that heart you and I 
have destinated our present and our future. It 
is all good and right and full of promise, what- 
ever may be the seeming. 

Though I have forgotten that former state in 
which I predestined my present action, do I not 
know that I am ensphered in Divinity; that in 
perfect freedom I decreed to be what I am; 
that the tendency within me to be myself and 
not another is of itself good? I decreed with 
wisdom, for in that past life when my home was 
in Deity did I not know all things? Yes, I 
knew all, I could see all, and the freedom of the 
universal was mine. By that unerring law 
which is at once my freedom and my security, 
I came forth from Deity, and so did you, my 
brother. Like two corpuscles in the life blood 
flowing from out the human heart, we set forth 
upon our way, moving with each other and yet 
distinct, each with a separate and inherent ten- 
dency to act, to do, to become. 

We do not remember why we started as we 
did, or what we wished to accomplish on the 
outgoing or incoming journey, but some day we 
shall recall it all. Then we shall know that 



30 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

never for one instant have we been lost, not one 
inch have we gone astray, but always and ever 
moving to the measure of the soul's highest 
law we have trodden the path of destiny to its 
glorious fulfillment. 

The lost opportunity is not lost forever. We 
shall meet it again and differently through the 
gain of deeper and fuller experience. Some 
time and somewhere there will come to us the 
occasion for taking back the cruel word and un- 
doing the deed of wrong, when fullest repara- 
tion will be given in joy rather than penance. 

Do not mistake the meaning of the diagram. 
It is not intended to show that man himself 
really travels from the centre to the circumfer- 
ence of the figure, for then his states of con- 
sciousness would be something apart from him- 
self, through which he must pass. Instead of 
that the figure stands for man himself, with Di- 
vinity at the centre, and his objective life at 
the circumference, while the line of destiny 
and the sections through which it is drawn sig- 
nify states or stages of awareness in the thought 
life, accompanied, of course, by their corre- 
sponding external conditions of the body and its 
surroundings. 

A word about this wonderful thing aware- 
ness, and I have done. Spirit has been well de- 
fined as, "Something which is and knows that it 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 31 

is." Spirit acts and reacts. When it acts it is 
not of necessity conscious of its action, but 
when it reacts it knows itself as acting. Aware- 
ness of psychological states is the reaction of 
spirit upon itself. As the ocean throws itself 
upon the shore and gathers its waters back in 
the undertow, so does the spirit know itself in 
the spiral of its motion. 

You, therefore, as a ray from the central 
sun of spirit, have this awareness of yourself, 
but you have it not in full. You see but a 
small part of your real self, and therefore do 
not appreciate your greatness or your power. 
What you seek is a fuller awareness, and you 
will find it, because it is the law of your being, 
the law of the spirit. 



32 



THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 



LESSON IV* 




Consciousness is really awareness, or seeing. 
I have therefore placed an eye at the centre of 
our Star of Manifestation to indicate the per- 
ceiving principle which is at the centre of Be- 
ing. Out of that inner seeing grows our physi- 
cal sight, and I wish to show, if possible, in this 
lesson, how a knowledge of the inner sight may 
be turned to practical effect in improving the 
physical vision. Among my patients I have 
from time to time many with failing sight. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 33 

With both young and old it seems peculiarly a 
disease of the present age. Often patients ask 
how they can cooperate with me so as to ad- 
vance the cure as speedily as possible, and to 
those patients I write in substance what I am 
about to give in this lesson. Only, I am now 
going to work out the ideas more fully than I 
could possibly do in a letter. 

In the April issue of the Radiant Centre I 
published an article concerning a Russian physi- 
cian who is perfecting an invention by which 
the blind may be made to see, no matter how 
badly the sight may be impaired. Dr. Stien 
says: 

"Man does not really see with his eyes, but 
with his brain. The eyes are only an instru- 
ment for receiving images, which are conveyed 
to the centre of perception in the brain by the 
optic nerve. The blind man who perceives the 
size, shape and nature of an object with his 
hands sees in a limited sense. If men had 
evolved without eyes, but with all their present 
brain power, they would doubtless be able to 
see by some other method. Some of the lower 
animals have no eyes, but perceive light with 
their whole bodies. 

"Now, if an image of material objects can be 
conveyed to the brain by some other agency 
than that of the eyes, it follows that a blind 



34 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

man who has a sound mind will be able to see 
perfectly well. This is exactly what my inven- 
tion accomplishes. 

"An image is gathered on a screen instead of 
on the retina of the eye and is conveyed directly 
by an electrical current to the brain. Such a 
use of the electric current has already been 
foreshadowed in the process well known to 
science as cataphoresis. By this it is possible 
to convey medicines, anesthetics and other sub- 
stances into the interior of a man's body with- 
out his being aware of it. By its aid cocaine 
can be sent through the solid bone, conveying 
insensibility to nerve and marrow. 

"This instrument in a slightly varied form 
will also enable the deaf to hear. 

"I may point out to you that the mere fact 
that we can see images in our dreams, in the 
dark, and with eyes closed, is proof of the pos- 
sibility of seeing without eyes as we at present 
understand them." 

In the concluding paragraph Dr. Stien admits 
that we can see without eyes, but I think he 
wtruld not be as ready to say that we could see 
without the brain. I think we could, however. 
If one material medium could be dispensed 
with, why not another ? 

Every system of metaphysical healing, by 
whatever name it is called, builds upon this 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 35 

basic fact — The externalization of a body with 
its component parts and functions from an in- 
ner, hidden, incorporeal Something. They are 
at variance about the character of that Some- 
thing, but they all postulate its necessity in or- 
der to account for a physical body. They go 
farther and say — As is that inner Something, so 
is the body. 

Now, we will not argue the possibility of 
there being or not being this inner Something, 
for that would fill the entire lesson and leave 
room for nothing else. There are some things 
which we only know through what is called 
transcendental knowledge, as for instance, I 
know that I am, I know that I know, I know 
that I hope, I know that I love, I know there is 
such a thing as mind, etc. These statements ad- 
mit of no argument, for they are patent, incon- 
trovertible. They simply are so, and we know 
them to be so. 

Metaphysical as well as physical science 
must start with its hypothesis. When it works 
we use it, when not we discard it. 

Well, to be brief, men have somehow discov- 
ered that the little beings which they know as 
their separate selves are somehow all bound to- 
gether in one common unity of being. They 
have also discovered that there is an external 
or phenomenal side to this one being and an in- 



36 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

ternal or noumenal side. They have discovered 
also that the inner, or noumenal side, is a 
sort of cause-world to the outer, phenomenal 
side, or effect world. 

It seems a well-established fact, and the men- 
tal therapeutist, taking it as a working hypo- 
thesis, has used it to good effect. When it fails 
will be time enough to discard it for another, if 
another and a better there be. 

But, taking it as the best we have at present, 
let us infer that external seeing is the result 
or effect of internal seeing. This inner Some- 
thing sees directly anything which is incor- 
poreal, like itself, but when it would extend its 
sight into the corporeal world of effects it must 
construct for itself a bridge of sensation by 
which it can touch external forms of life. The 
seeing is not in the bridge itself, but in the see- 
ing faculty which uses it. This seeing faculty 
is consciousness itself, the eye that never sleeps, 
or the eye of the Spirit. 

You, being Spirit, have the all-seeing eye at 
the centre of consciousness. There is an outer 
form of consciousness which does not see at all 
times. It is a spurious form. It is not the real 
thing, and it is in a measure blind; that is, its 
sight is darkened. The outer consciousness is 
very closely allied to the physical sight, and acts 
directly upon it. This outer consciousness, tak- 



EASY LESSONS TN REALIZATION. 37 

ing note, as it does, of the change in the exter- 
nal world and seeing failure and decay written 
on all things and accepting that as the ultimate 
of life, stamps that ultimate upon the physical 
eye, and it degenerates accordingly. 

But that is not the ultimate. There is an in- 
ner consciousness which knows better, and lit- 
tle by little, for such is the order of life, the 
outer consciousness impinges on the inner, thus 
seeing more and more what it sees, and knowing 
more and more what it knows. This is what we 
call the at-one-ment, the reconciliation between 
the outer and temporal life and the inner or 
spiritual life. 

Owing to this at-one-ment the way is opened 
through the outer consciousness so that the in- 
ner or all-seeing power can act directly upon 
the physical organ of sight. 

To apply this practically, refer to the dia- 
gram, or Star of Manifestation. See yourself 
as the ray proceeding from the Centre of Life ; 
then trace yourself steadily back (for there is 
no break) to that Centre. Eealize that you are 
one with it; that because it has the power of 
sight, so have you. Then let your thought pass 
outward again to the end of the ray and feel 
that you are carrying the power of clear seeing 
with you, even to the extreme of outward 
vision. In this way you will join your thought 



38 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

to that of the healer and strengthen its effect, 
or if your own thought be strong enough you 
will be able to restore your sight without the 
aid of a healer. 

It is in this sense that you can truthfully say 
"I can see," when your eyes have utterly failed 
you, for you are speaking of that inner self, 
the consciousness, whose sight is perfect and un- 
failing, the awareness which is the eye of the 
Spirit and never sleeps and never knows weari- 
ness. This perfect vision is yours and can 
manifest externally. 

Now let me recapitulate. Consciousness is 
seeing or awareness; man is conscious being, 
therefore he has the power of seeing. Physical 
sight is obscured because of a veil between an 
outer imperfect form of consciousness and the 
inner or real. The order of evolution or growth 
is that this veil shall be swept away, allowing 
the real consciousness to permeate the man 
from centre to circumference. The sweeping 
aside of this veil, which takes place gradually, is 
the process of at-one-ment by which man's ex- 
ternal being comes in direct touch with his in- 
ner consciousness, and is thus born again, re- 
generated, revitalized in every part. 

And whatever you lack in bodily functioning, 
know that the power dwells in perfection at the 
centre of life, with which vou are one. See 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 39 

that power at the centre and then trace it out 
through the ray of your being. It will attend 
your thought and go where you will it to go, 
for such is the law. 



40 



THINKING IN THE HEART; OE, 



LESSON V- 

















— , 


^=m 












■:; ■ ' \PAINahd 








APPARENT. 




■== 


Wis 

If* 






j§jl 




^TIi^ 



















You have now before you a diagram by which 
I hope to prove to you that it is possible to out- 
grow or get away from pain. It is well known 
that pain has been, and still is, a factor in evolu- 
tion. I do not deny that. On the contrary, I 
fully believe it. What I do deny is that evolu- 
tion shall always find that factor indispensable. 
The time is coming when men cannot suffer. 
Nature points to such a time. Even now she 
will not permit her creatures to suffer beyond a 
certain limit. When that limit is reached she 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 41 

lulls them to unconsciousness or wakes them to 
bliss. 

William Flagg in his work on Yoga writes of 
Saint John of the Cross, of whom it was said 
that "through the silence of the night the sound 
of his lash would reach the ears of the friars, 
who trembled when they heard it, for they 
knew how merciless he was to himself." There 
came a time, however, when he could devise no 
penance that did not yield pleasure instead of 
pain, and Flagg accounts for that fact by sup- 
posing that the practice of penance "thoroughly 
and long persisted in has power, along with oth- 
er bodily modifications it effects, such as ada- 
mantine hardness, control of breath, levitation, 
Herculean strength, etc., to actually reverse the 
normal action of the sensory nerves and to con- 
vert pain into pleasure, or else so completely 
overcome pain by pleasure that none is felt, 
which last, by the way, would hardly be more 
strange than that a condemned witch could 
tranquilly slumber on a pile of burning fagots, 
a thing that has often happened." 

I believe that Flagg's supposition is correct 
and that a turning point can be reached by both 
an individual and the race where the action of 
the sensory nerves is reversed, yielding there- 
after no more pain, but only pleasure. A subtle 
sense of this must pervade the minds of those 



42 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OR, 

who believe in mental healing. If there is no 
ultimate escape from pain, to what end do they 
work? The door of escape need not open 
through self-inflicted penance. Lif e gives us 
pain enough unsought. If we can only believe 
it to be the passageway to bliss, how changed 
and hopeful the outlook. In this sense only can 
all be good. 

And now let me refer to the diagram to still 
further explain my meaning. I have shown in 
the previous lessons that man in his outer life 
bears the same relation to a vast and unex- 
pressed central life that the ray of the star 
bears to its centre. Man, in his real essence, 
is the centre, but in his manifestation or expres- 
sion he is an emanation or a ray of Being. 

Pure light in passing into manifestation is 
converted into a duality; into the relatives light 
and darkness. 

Pure bliss passes in like manner into the rela- 
tives pain and bliss. 

The perfect likewise becomes relatively both 
perfect and imperfect. 

Good becomes good and evil. 

The real becomes both real and apparent. 

Expression or manifestation is therefore a 
mixture of light and darkness, of bliss and pain, 
of perfect and imperfect, of good and evil, of 
the real and apparent. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 43 

That is, expression as we know ifc, is thus 
dual, but we can imagine an expression which is 
all light, all bliss, all perfect, all good and all 
real. 

This is the Ideal, the dream of the World, 
and toward it the World presses. 

Oh, this glorious Centre within and back of 
expression in us all! Who would not call it 
more and more out into the world of action? 

Of course it is beyond our conception now, a 
world without pain, darkness, evil, imperfection 
or unreality, but so was our present state of be- 
ing unknown and unimagined to the earlier 
forms of life in which we functioned in past 
ages. I might go back of that and say there was 
a time when from a higher state we foresaw the 
worm which we should become as well as our 
return to Godhood, but that is foreign to the 
argument. Whatever Ave had known was for- 
gotten, as the worm, and yet hidden away in 
that simple, tiny organism lay the nucleus of re- 
membrance like a sleeping seed awaiting its life. 

The worm saw not its destiny, but moved un- 
erringly toward the man, drawn by an ideal 
close at hand, but all unconscious of the larger 
vision. Man moves to-day as certainly toward 
the Ideal which he can not see in its fulness, 
but none the less truly does he move toward the 
highest life, the highest strength and the high- 
est joy. 



44 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

Heaven is within, said the Christ of past ages. 
Heaven is within, echoes the man of to-day. 
Yes, within, my brother, at the radiant centre 
of all life, and yon are not separated from it 
for one instant. You never were, and yon nev- 
er can be. 3STo one can take heaven from yon 
but yourself, and that by the closing of your 
spiritual eye. 

Eight in the midst of poverty, sickness and 
distress, you can find the heaven within, and 
when you do, all will be transformed without. 

And even now when you do not thoroughly 
understand the laws of mind you can accom- 
plish much if you will try. When you feel de- 
pression settling down upon you like a cloud of 
gloom instead of sinking under the pressure, 
you can say — I will be happy ! I will rejoice ! 
If you say it weakly at first, say it again with 
persistence, and more strength will come. Ev- 
ery atom in your mind and body will move in 
obedience to your affirmation, and soon you will 
be happy, even though there be no immediate 
change in your surroundings. But that change 
for the better will also come. Until it does, re- 
member you can rejoice, even though you are 
physically worn with the care of your house, of 
your children or the many responsibilities which 
devolve upon you in greater or less degree. 

Wherever you are and whatever you are do- 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 45 

ing, remember you are in the pathway to heav- 
en, which means only that your eyes are open- 
ing so that heaven can be revealed to you, and 
when it is so revealed a radiance will go forth 
from your spirit which will illumine your whole 
life and the lives of those about you. 

And is it not enough to make anyone glad to 
know that the movement of the world is to- 
ward greater life and greater joy ? The passage 
is from darkness to light and from pain to bliss, 
otherwise it were a sad and cruel wojld indeed. 

If, as you read my words, you are filled with 
a sudden uplif tment of the spirit, know that it 
is because my words are true, and, being true, 
they are living words straight from the heart of 
being. They are charged with health, with life 
and with joy, and you in reading them are 
moved to rejoice with me, for we light our 
lamps not only at the central fire, but also one 
of another. 



46 



THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 



LESSON VL 




I am often asked if I believe in prayer. I do. 
But let me explain what I mean by prayer. I 
mean far more than is meant in the orthodox 
interpretation, and yet I include that in my 
conception. Every atom prays, reaching out 
tiny hands to be filled with that which it 
desires. Man can do no more, All action 
}n the universe is based on prayer and its 
fulfillment. The seed prays to the earth, to 
the air, to the sun; that is, it sends out a de- 
mand, and that demand is met and supplied. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATTON. 47 

Emerson says: "As soon as the man is at one 
with God, he will not beg. He will then see 
prayer in all action. t The prayer of the farmer 
kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of 
the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, 
are true prayers heard throughout nature, 
though for cheap ends." 

The man who is not at one with Gocl does not 
see prayer in all action. He limits it to an en- 
treaty from the human mind to a Divinity tran- 
scendent, separate and distinct from itself. His 
conception, so far as it goes, is true enough, for 
Divinity transcends the human consciousness. 
Not until it is merged, into the Divine does it 
know itself to be not only the prayer, but the 
answer as well. * 

Those who have studied the foregoing lessons 
in this series will understand the above dia- 
gram to represent potential Being and its ex- 
pression. The rays stand for expression or Be- 
ing passing into manifestation. The space in 
the middle of the diagram we call the radiant 
centre from which radiates every expression 
possible to Being, but in this instance we have 
attempted only to represent the human ray or 
expression. 

The human consciousness in its progress to- 
ward Divinity awakens gradually along the 
whole length of the ray, beginning at the small 



48 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OK, 

end, where it focusses in external life, in cir- 
cumscribed form, and widening with the ray un- 
til it reaches the breadth and absolute freedom 
of the centre. 

In Kay (1) let us suppose that we have the 
earliest awakening of the human consciousness. 
The presence of Divinity is not realized, and 
yet its pressure or influence is felt as of some- 
thing coming from afar. The state is analogous 
to that of our earth as it receives the light and 
warmth of the sun. It only gets this light and 
warmth after it has passed through many 
strata of earth-enveloping ethers. The earth 
does not know the sun as it really is, but as it ia 
when affected by the intervening media through 
which it must pass. To illustrate further: If I 
were a lifelong prisoner behind red glass win- 
dows my natural inference would be that all 
light is red. Let me escape and I learn the 
truth. It may not be the entire secret of the 
solar spectrum which stands revealed to me, but 
I at least know that the light which I had sup- 
posed to be red was only so by virtue of the 
medium through which it reached me. 

In like manner the human consciousness 
when it awakes at the end of the ray feels Di- 
vinity, but has a misconception regarding it. It 
can not be otherwise in the natural order of 
things. It feels Divinity and reaches out in- 



\/ 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 49 

stinctively toward it blindly and feebly, and 
this is its prayer, the earliest prayer of the hu- 
man consciousness, weak, imperfect, but nat- 
ural, orderly and necessary because it is the first 
number of a sequence. In a sequential order of 
unf oldment number one is as essential to that 
order as the number which marks its end. 

Divinity shines as surely upon the fetich wor- 
shipper as upon the monotheist, but it touches 
both through media, and is therefore not fully 
revealed. 

The prayer of the earlier consciousness opens, 
the door to an inner place in the ray of Being 
which lies nearer the centre. From this place 
prayer reaches forth again, another door is 
opened, and thus is the passage made from the 
earliest dawn of the human consciousness to its 
at-one-ment with the Divine. It is a gradual 
awakening of life and action from the point of 
the ray to its radiant centre. 

I have only designated four degrees in my 
diagram because my star has only five rays. In 
four of these rays I have indicated the stages in 
which prayer is both necessary and efficient. In 
the fifth there is no longer need of it because 
the human is one with the Divine and has all at 
its command. It asks nothing because it has 
all. It stands at the centre and speaks the cre- 
ative word, the word of health, the word of 



50 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OE, 

power, and those words are made flesh; that is, 
they take on embodiment and become manifest 
in the external world. 

The whole story of creation is told in that 
one brief statement — The Word made Flesh — 
taken in its esoteric significance. The soul of 
every object is its thought or idea, and from 
that thought or idea its outer being comes. The 
things which we see and touch are embodied 
thoughts, every one of them. 

When we reach the creative realm we think 
thoughts of health, of beauty, of happiness and 
prosperity into existence for ourselves and 
others. A message of pure joy goes straight 
from the heart of the Infinite through the lips 
of the finite and blesses all whom it touches. 

Until this place is reached there will and 
must be prayer. Until we come to the foun- 
tain we must quench our thirst at the chalice 
held by the uplifted hand of appeal. 

And even when we find the fountain of all 
life and taste its healing waters we often stray 
afar from it, drawn by the rhythm of the earth 
life back into primal conditions, back into the 
weakness, back under burdens, but never to re- 
main there, for prayer leads us again to the 
centre. What it has done once it can do over 
and over again until we are indeed and forever 
one with the central life. 



EASY LESSONS EST KEALIZATION. 51 

Why the rhythm ? Why the drawing away ? 
Indeed I know not. I suppose it to be the 
working of the one law r of the universe, the law 
of Love, which draws us now here and now 
there in the fulfilment of its blessed purpose 
that by many and devious paths we may attain 
to the fullest joy. 

Therefore I believe in prayer, but I also be- 
lieve that we outgrow it. Prayer and desire 
both indicate lack, and how can there be lack 
in Godhood, in Perfection? At the centre we 
are God even now, and at the circumference we 
are human. In many of us the God-conscious- 
ness is awakened, though we do not live in it 
continuously. We live also in the human, but 
by holding close to the centre we glorify the 
human, carrying to the extreme end of the ray 
the pure light from the central radiance. 

But, remember to pray in this manner. En- 
ter into thy closet and when thou hast shut thy 
door pray to thy Father which is in secret, and 
thy Father which seeth in secret, himself shall 
reward thee openly. I do not know what sig- 
nificance these words carried when they were 
uttered, but I know what they mean to me. To 
go into the closet and shut the door indicates 
silence, going within the consciousness and clos- 
ing the door against the external world. There 
you speak to the Father (or source of being), 



52 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

which is in secret, or hidden from the external 
eye, and that Father which seeth in secret (per- 
ceiving mentally or comprehending your needs) 
himself shall reward thee openly; that is. from 
the internal hidden source there shall flow forth 
in answer to your demand that for which you 
ask. It shall come into external manifestation, 
and thus shall you be rewarded openly. Out of 
the potential or hidden world something shall 
proceed which can be sensed openly, something 
which is made manifest, externalized in the ma- 
terial world. 

Or, if it be a spiritual blessing which you ask, 
there shall come something so vital and real 
into your consciousness that there is no mistak- 
ing it; a subjective reality coming into the open 
of your mind from a hidden inner source. 

Call it God or the Cosmic Consciousness, as 
you will, there is Something to which the hu- 
man heart instinctively appeals — Something 
which answers the appeal and finally Something 
with which the human heart is at last united, 
when it no longer has need of prayer. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 



53 



LESSON VII. 




As Man passes from his God-centre to his 
human circumference of tangible and visible 
expression he is subject to certain laws which 
distort that expression. To use an old simile, 
he is like a straight stick which appears crooked 
when plunged in running water. He is living 
a dual experience, that of a true and an untrue 
life. Between the two he vacillates as a trav- 
eler who is at home in neither. The untrue life 
is a necessity and a part of expression, as es- 



54 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

sential to it as the vapors which lie between us 
and the sun and equally illusive. 

While consciousness may be only awake to 
the untrue life we are at the same time living 
the true life, each and every one of us. That 
we do not know it makes no difference; it goes 
on just the same, adjusting our mistakes, in- 
spiring us with new and higher ideals, guiding 
and guarding us in all endeavor. 

The awareness of life which we call con- 
sciousness (the human consciousness, I mean, 
which is a different thing from the Cosmic or 
Universal Consciousness) first manifests itself 
within the boundaries of the untrue life. It 
sees things not as they really are, but as they 
appear to be. You cannot convince a child that 
the horizon is not the limit of the world, and it 
is the limit of his world at the time, but it 
spreads and enlarges with increasing intelli- 
gence. When his field of vision becomes the 
subjective realm he is encompassed by another 
restrictive but ever widening horizon, which at 
last becomes co-extensive with Being itself and 
is one with the Cosmic Consciousness. 

In our diagram, the star of manifestation, I 
have drawn an inner star to represent the true 
life. Between it and the outer limit lies the 
field of the untrue life, the ephemeral, the 
changeful. While the consciousness remains 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 55 

within this field it is subject to the illusions 
which it accepts as real. Here disease riots, 
doubt and fear prevail, fleeting pleasure is fol- 
lowed swift by pain and loss, spurious love ob- 
tains with its heartaches and it jealous pangs. 
This is indeed the country in which the prodi- 
gal son found himself when, far away from the 
Father's house, he fed upon the husks. 

When the human consciousness passes from 
this outer sphere into the inner state of Being 
it is making the return to the Father's house 
where plenty abounds and where hunger is un- 
known, but it will not seek that house until 
hunger grows intense and the fact is borne in 
upon it that the husks contain no nourishment. 
Not until all things fail in the far country does 
it return to its home. 

Wherever this spark of awareness is alight, 
there the Ego knows itself. When it is alight 
in the outer field, in the space between the in- 
ner star and the outer, then the Ego is only 
conscious of a weak and lowly conditioned self, 
separate from its source of existence, but when 
alight in the inner field then it knows its true 
life and becomes cognizant of its great powers. 

When consciousness enters the inner field, 
and takes up its position there, it does not lose 
its hold on the outer fields but reaches forth and 
commands it as an outlying territory in which 



56 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OE, 

it does not care to dwell, but into which it may 
make excursions at will as its lord and gover- 
nor. It has thus lost nothing and has gained 
much. It has found a better country in which 
there are facilities for fertilizing or carrying 
new life into the old. Now when it goes forth 
it is not as the Prodigal, but as the Prince. It 
finds the husk, but the kernel is within. 

As I have said before, the true life has been 
operative all the while, but there has been no 
consciousness of that life — and here let me 
make a distinction between consciousness and 
life. I will only say that consciousness is the 
knowledge of life. While there can be no con- 
sciousness without life there can be life without 
consciousness, or, in other words, there may be 
life without a knowledge of itself. Most of you 
can remember the time when as a child you had 
no knowledge of yourself. I can distinctly re- 
member the hour when a knowledge of self 
came to me. It dawned somewhat cruelly, for 
an angry playmate criticised me most unpleas- 
antly. She told me that I had a large mouth, 
and although I did not know the merit or de- 
merit of such a possession, something in her 
tone conveyed a strong suspicion of demerit. 
For the first time I looked at myself in the glass 
critically. The survey gave me no actual knowl- 
edge, but I was a wretched child. A poor little 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 57 

Eve had tasted of the fruit growing on the tree 
of the knowledge of good and evil and was 
straightway driven from Eden. 

After a time my mother noticed that when- 
ever I was called into the drawing-room to be 
presented to callers I covered my month with 
my hand, and she said: "Katie, don't do that. 
It is very awkward." Here was a double grief. 
I not only had a large mouth, but I was also 
very awkward, but with the larger grief came a 
larger consciousness of Self. I became very 
thoughtful, my mind being a ground of debate 
as to whether it were better to disguise the 
large mouth or appear very awkward. Evident- 
ly it was a choice of two evils and not a good in 
sight. The good was to come later as the in- 
trospection grew deeper when I looked not at 
the mouth or any ungraceful action, but at that 
which had been hidden and so far undiscovered. 

Then introspection touched the subjective 
self and went on until it reached the inmost sub- 
jective or the true life. I have used the per- 
sonal illustration to show in a way how the pas- 
sage occurs and also to prove that consciousness 
— the human consciousness of course I mean — 
has its first awakening in the outer or objective 
mind, thence moving to the inner or subjective 
mind and finally to the inmost or spiritual Self 
which always moves and acts in the true life, 
but is not conscious of itself as so doing. 



58 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OK, 

We are driven by lash and spur out of igno- 
rance into wisdom, out of error into truth, out 
of illusion into reality. Suffering and unrest 
are the goads which drive us on. They can not 
touch the real Self. That sits in motionless 
ca]m watching the apparent self that is exploit- 
ing in the outer field of illusion, and later in 
that of the true life. The Self is the riddle of 
the Sphinx, the riddle of the ages. 

If you would solve this riddle watch your 
Self. See how the real you stands back of all 
action. Then see how the apparent you, the 
one which you know more intimately, looks to 
the real you for approval, for guidance and for 
continued existence; for this apparent you has 
no independent life of its own. It is as depend- 
ent upon the real Self as the shadow upon the 
object which casts it. Remove the object and 
the shadow goes, too. But the real Self is 
something which can not be removed; therefore 
its shadow lingers until the Sun is at meridian. 
Then is the shadow lost in substance. 

And what is the true Self ? It is Deity. It 
is Divinity. Let us not be afraid to affirm it. 

I have apparently given you two contradic- 
tory statements. I have said in one paragraph 
that the spiritual or true Self moves and acts 
and in another that this same Self is motionless 
as the Sphinx. How can both statements be 
true ? How does the true Self act ? 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 59 

Well, let us see. Suppose I go to the piano 
and play for you Beethoven's Sonata Appas- 
sionata. I thus set up motion in mind and 
body, but I am not in that motion. I cause it, 
I oversee it, I control it, and for those very 
reasons I am not in it. The apparent I is in it, 
but not the real I. Note the expression — My 
mind, my body, my self. What does it mean? 
Simply that I have a mind, I have a body, I # 
have a self. I, the master, cause this mind, %y 
body and self to function, or act. It is thus 
I express myself. In rendering the Sonata my 
apparent self, or in other words, the self that 
appears, must hold close to me, the true Self. 
From this Self Beethoven wrote the Sonata, 
from this same Self I render it, for do you not 
understand, this Self of which I speak, was not 
only a Beethoven, it is you, it is I, as well. It 
is back of mind and function, but expresses it- 
self through both. 

The great central Self holds the entire So- 
nata in the hollow of its hand. It encompasses 
it round about. It sees it in its fulness. This 
the functional self can not do, for it has not the 
comprehensive vision, the omniscience which 
sees the end with the beginning, but by virtue 
of its functioning must pass through all the in- 
termediate terms, cognizing each in its passage, 
but never grasping the whole. 



CO THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

Every artist, musician, speaker or writer who 
thrills us does so because his functional self is in 
touch with the true Self, and obedient to it. All 
else is mechanical, automatic, dead and unin- 
spiring. Nothing can thrill but life, and life is 
the effluence of the true Self. 

Now, I ask, How can anyone feel alone, help- 
less or uncared for with such a Self at hand, 
full of infinite resources ? If you can not be- 
lieve that you have such a Self, set the fact up 
in consciousness and give it your attention, your 
criticism, your cavil, if you will. Finally, it 
will prevail and obtain your sanction, because 
it is the truth. Entertain the stranger and you 
have entertained the angel unawares, the angel 
who is ever after to brighten your life with its 
glorious presence. 

And when you have found the true life, and 
the angel and the shrine, you need not withdraw 
from the illusions in the outer court of the tem- 
ple. Seek them if you will, but take them at 
their actual value. So will your sorrows be 
lighter, your joys higher and your loves strong- 
er and truer. 

You lose nothing by going into the Imper- 
sonal. On the contrary, you gain all. 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 



61 



LESSON VIIL 




In the preceding lessons I have endeavored to 
show that man is one with an all-comprehen- 
sive Being which flows from centre to circum- 
ference and from circumference back to centre 
by its own intrinsic law or mode of motion. 
This law is not imposed upon it from the out- 
side, for there is no outside, since Being is all 
there is. Being, or any part of Being, moves 
as it does because it is what it is and for no 
other reason. The reason is in itself and no- 
where else. 



62 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OR, 

We speak of ourselves as separate beings be- 
cause we have lost sight of the central unity of 
all life. We are not separated from it in re- 
ality any more than the branch is separated 
from the tree on which it grows, but if the 
branch could be supposed to have a small mind 
peculiar to itself and the tree a larger mind pe- 
culiar to itself, this would illustrate very well 
the difference between the state of conscious- 
ness which becomes functional or acts in the 
personal mind and that entire, whole, perfect 
and complete Consciousness which projects the 
personal, that Unity which projects from Itself 
Plurality, the One making Itself the Many. 

I use the star as a diagram because it shows in 
a way, so far as any symbol can express verity, 
how it is that the One becomes Many. It does 
it by radiation from its own centre. 

Now, you know Plato says: "If One is, the 
One can not be Many." That is quite true. 
Our One does not break itself up or become less 
Itself because it becomes Many. And now no- 
tice the difference between being and becoming. 
Plato does not say, "The One can not become 
Many;" he says, "The One can not be Many." 
Being and becoming are not synonymous terms, 
for being stands for the "ding an sich" (thing in 
itself), while becoming stands for the acting or 
doing of that "thing in itself." 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 63 

For instance — I AM. That is a primary fact. 
I do — That is a secondary fact. Were it not 
for the "I AM" there would be no "I do." The 
"I AM" is the subject in the sentence of Life, 
the "I do" is its predicate. The "I AM" is the 
centre of Being, the "I do" is its circumference. 
The "I AM" is Divinity, the "I do" is Hu- 
manity. 

Very few understand this aright, and there- 
fore when they read such a statement, they ex- 
claim: "Oh what dreadful sacrilege !" To their 
minds Divinity is thereby dragged from its high 
estate down into the mire. Divinity can not be 
dragged anywhere. It goes voluntarily. It de- 
scends graciously, willingly into the mire every 
time a lily or a rose is born. Did you not know 
that ? You can see Divinity in the rose, you can 
see it in the lily, but you do not realize that to 
get to each it must go down into the soil — the 
soil, mind you — and the soil, as its name would 
indicate, has much in it that is far from pure 
and sweet. The soil is composed of the dregs 
of physical substance. It is full of putrefaction 
and all uncleanness, and the fuller it is of these 
base elements the better it is and the fairer the 
flower springing from it. 

Notice how naturally we call putrefaction or 
impurity a base element and also notice that it 
is the base of growth. It may be a fanciful con- 



64 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

struction, but I can fancy that the flower grows 
away from such a base because of its own in- 
herent purity, carrying with it just enough of 
the lower or basic element to enable it to ex- 
press itself on the material plane, for only thus 
can it relate itself to that plane. Without the 
base element it would so transcend the physical 
as not to be visible or tangible to the senses, and 
to us it would be non-existent. In other words, 
a flower dwells in Divinity as a thought of God, 
and like any other thought it clothes itself with 
material substance and becomes a thought ex- 
pressed. We see and touch it and for the first 
time become conscious of the existence of that 
which has lived in subjective spheres as a real- 
ity, but is now visiting us on this plane as an 
actuality. 

It is the real life of the flower that appeals 
to our sense of the beautiful. In its form, color 
and perfume, which constitute its language, it is 
telling of its triumph over the powers of dark- 
ness, its passage from the unclean to the holy 
and its apotheosis in bloom. 

I remember once seeing two exquisite flow- 
ers that told me their story in language never 
to be forgotten. They spoke to me in a foreign 
tongue, in the language of angels perchance, 
but I found the translation in my inner life, and 
it has remained with me, and will remain with 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 65 

me always. The flowers were two blossoms of 
the night blooming cereus. As I stood before 
their wonderful translucent whiteness which 
seemed to radiate delicate tremulous waves of 
light, they seemed to me like celestial beings, 
and I understood why our atmosphere must be 
too heavy for them and why their stay with us \J 
must be so brief. In an hour or two they would 
return whence they came and breathe once more 
their pure and native ether, but not until they 
had given us their heavenly message. 

It was a beautiful custom of the town in 
which I lived, for the owner of a night bloom- 
ing cereus to invite in all the friends and neigh- 
bors upon the occasion of its blooming, and I 
remember well the stillness that was in the 
room as we moved in line, each stopping a mo- 
ment in contemplation before those silent flow- 
ers. Silent to the outer ear, but full of speech 
to the inner. A hush fell upon the assembly, 
the room was a shrine and within it was the 
Holy Presence. An indescribable longing swept 
over me to fall on my knees before those mes- 
sengers from a celestial sphere and implore a 
fuller revelation, for there seemed so close at 
hand a glory to be revealed. But convention 
held me and I passed on silent and wistful, 
while the calm, sweet flowers seemed saying: 
Peace ! Have faith ! There is nothing hidden 



66 THINKING TN THE HEART; OR, 

that shall not be revealed. All that thou de- 
sirest shall come to thee in good time, only do 
thou be patient and faithful. 

The apotheosis of the flower is also that of 
the God-man or God-like human being. He 
comes up out of the soil or impure life by virtue 
of the Divinity within him, into the freedom 
and purity of the air above, the lower life being 
a necessity to the higher. It has been said that 
the greatest sinners make the greatest saints, 
and if this be true it must be on account of the 
principle here involved, just as the larger and 
more vigorous plant must extend its roots wider 
and deeper into the soil to balance the greater 
breadth and height above, while the smaller and 
less vigorous can do with a slighter root hold on 
the soil. 

There is no premium on the impure life in 
consequence of this principle. It is in fact a 
going away from the central Sun and involves 
an imprisonment in darkness, but only the go- 
ing away makes possible the return with its un- 
folding experiences and its joys; and hence the 
descent of spirit into matter, with its so-called 
evil and attendant penalty, is good. The things 
we call evil are the imperfect, unfinished, un- 
developed forms of good. There is no base de- 
sire which may not be transmuted into its cor- 
relative aspiration. A base desire is an incom- 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 67 

plete aspiration. It is force going downward 
before it goes upward. The isolated fact is an 
evil, but taken with the whole it is an unques- 
tioned good. Murder is an evil, but to the 
slayer and the slain there must come, through 
the Divine Alchemy, the ultimate good. Each 
will wade through deep pools of suffering in 
which the blood stains will be washed away, and 
though the murder is the direct cause of the 
suffering, it is good because it leads to an ulti- 
mate good. 

Take a man at the moment of crime, in the 
act of murder for instance, and because he is 
what he is and the situation is what it is, there 
is but one course open to him. Because of past 
action he is brought to a point of culmination 
where nothing but the murder is possible to 
him. Given the provocation and he is as certain 
to become a destructive agent as gunpowder at 
the touch of a burning match. It is the result 
of natural law, and in the case of the gunpow- 
der it ends in natural law, whereas in the case of 
the man it does not, for spiritual law overlaps 
the event, gathers it into the sphere of the Di- 
vine and converts it into good. Now, that 
which can be converted into good must have in 
itself the elements of good. In a word — Evil 
is but undeveloped good. A fiery new born 
planet seething upon its orbit is an evil thing 



68 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

compared with that same planet in its produc- 
tive period, but from the first it holds all good 
and beautiful things in its bosom. They are 
there, but concealed. Man is just the same in 
his process of unfoldment passing from the 
primal, chaotic, burning or passionate period of 
his existence to his perfection of being. 

The path from evil to good is the path of 
penalty, of pain and suffering, or more strictly 
speaking, the point of departure from evil is 
marked by pain, for pain is that which fences in 
evil, and like a barbed wire excludes us from 
forbidden precincts. There is nothing within 
those precincts which we really desire or which 
is tributary to our happiness, therefore pain is 
beneficent and good in the ultimate. 

All states of becoming are more or less evil, 
and we pass out of each owing to a degree of 
pain or discomfort which we experience and 
from which we would escape. This engenders 
restlessness, want, desire, action, which all 
amount to the same thing. All are forms of a 
discontent (dis-content) signifying emptiness, 
vacuum, a lack of contents, a state in which the 
mind does not contain or hold within itself 
something which it desires. It is hungry and 
seeks fulness, reaching out into its environs for 
impression and experience. This is the secret 
of action, the secret of evolution, the secret of 
becoming. 



EASY LESSONS IN EEALIZATION. 69 

There are two methods of teaching in the 
New Thought, each repudiating the other as 
false. One busies itself with expounding the 
active "I do" side of life and ignores the change- 
less "I AM," while the other recognizes only 
the "I AM" and ignores the "I do." These 
contending factions remind me of the old fable 
concerning two knights who approached a 
trophy shield from opposite directions. One 
side of this shield was gold and the other silver; 
thus each knight, seeing but one side, was led 
to dispute with the other about the metal com- 
posing it, until from words they came to blows, 
when, luckily, just at this juncture, a third 
knight appeared upon the scene, to whom the 
dispute was referred. This knight looked upon 
both sides of the shield and then informed the 
disputants that the subject of dissension was 
gold upon one side and silver upon the other. 

Let us suppose that the third knight had not 
looked at both sides. Had he looked at one side 
only, he must, in opinion, have taken a stand 
either upon one side or the other and pro- 
nounced the shield to be either gold or silver. 
Then when other knights were added to the 
company, each would naturally enroll himself 
in one faction or the other according to his 
angle of vision, and the factions would grow 
until the original two disputants would swell 



70 THINKING IN THE HEAET; OR, 

to thousands, while the entire feud would be 
founded upon a myth or a half truth, which 
amounts to the same thing. All feuds in de- 
fense of truth have ever been based upon a half 
truth or the imperfect cognition of a full truth, 
for men are so constituted that they come into 
the knowledge of truth gradually. They are 
not born full grown. If they were, there would 
be no growth for them either mentally or phys- 
ically. 

But to return to our shield story and its ap- 
plication. It is evident that so long as each 
knight was defending his own partial concep- 
tion of the shield he drew no nearer to a full 
conception of its entire substance, and it would 
have led to greater wisdom to have taken a 
look at the other side. It is therefore better 
to emulate the third knight in the story and 
attain to a wholeness of thought rather than 
contend for an accentuation of differences. 

The "I AM" and the "I do" factions are each 
right so far as each goes, but neither is telling 
more than half the story, leaving the other 
half untold. The "I AM" faction claims to be 
perfect now, to have all things now, and to it 
there is no past or future, for all is in the eter- 
nal Now. 

This is wholly unintelligible to the "I do" 
faction which traces its origin back to proto- 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 71 

plasm and finds its whole life proceeding from 
that beginning. It deals with the unfolding or 
evolution of form, but says never a w r ord of the 
infolding or involution of that which produecs 
form. I^ot only this, but it ridicules and re- 
pudiates all knowledge concerning such a pri- 
mal cause. 

The Radiant Centre teaching covers the en- 
tire ground held by both factions. Recognizing 
evolution as a fact and acknowledging the ex- 
istence of something which does grow or evolve, \ 
it also recognizes a Something back of all ac- 
tion which is permanent and unchanging. Some- 
thing which always is and never becomes. Some- 
thing which produces action but is not involved 
in it. 

If we see only action in life and lose sight of 
the calm centre of being we are drawn into a 
maelstrom and are whirled ceaselessly about in 
a round of mental activity without repose or 
mastery, but when we see, in thought, the calm, 
unchanging centre, the mental activity con- 
verges toward it, becomes stilled and then goes 
out from that centre with a new, direct and pur- 
poseful impulse. It goes forth from the Master 
and is therefore masterful. There is an en- 
ergy of position, you know, and this sort of ac- 
tivity, coming as it does from the energy of 
position, acquires an energy unknown to the 



72 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

motion of the maelstrom. It goes out straight 
from the centre instead of being whirled help- 
lessly about that centre. 

The potential or unexpressed world is in the 
"I AM" of Being, while the actual or expressed 
world is in the "I do" of Being. Both prop- 
erly belong to it and one can not be divorced 
from the other; but though they can not be 
divorced in reality we can think of them sep- 
arately or divide them in thought, and this has 
been the error of our thinking. From erro- 
neous thinking there can be but one result and 
that is erroneous expression; hence we mani- 
fest a lack of symmetry and beauty in face and 
form, for, as a man thinketh so is he to the very 
limit of his circumference. 

The "I AM" people declare that each indi- 
vidual is sufficient unto himself, that he has all 
within himself and that he needs nothing out- 
side of himself, and yet one of these very peo- 
ple once said to me that it was often a great re- 
lief to him to meet others who were not meta- 
physical. It was a relief, he said, and gave him 
a change of thought. He was really in the 
camp of the "I do" people and did not know it. 
I brought the fact to his notice, for being one 
of the "I do" people myself, at the time, I did 
not propose that he should come over into our 
camp for ammunition to do his firing, and I 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 73 

said so promptly, somewhat to his discomfiture. 
Certainly if he needed association at any time 
with a non-metaphysical person he was not suf- 
ficient unto himself, and what nonsense it is, to 
be sure, to deny the necessity for communication 
with our fellow-creatures and indeed with all 
other forms of life. 

This brings me to the point I would make in 
this lesson. I would emphasize the fact that while 
all life proceeds from the centre where it is one, 
as it passes into the separateness of form there 
is and must be interaction between those forms. 
Thus a line of action extends from the ray 
(or form) A in the diagram to the ray B and 
from the ray B back to the ray A, so that A 
touches B from the exterior and B touches A 
also from the exterior. 

We touch each other through impression or 
sensation, and that impression or sensation is a 
call to the inner life to come forth and show 
itself. It comes forth obedient to the call and 
is manifest as externalized energy in one form 
or another as the case may be. Of course it is 
the inner life all the while that is working out 
through the ray A and touching the ray B or 
through the ray B and touching the ray A, but 
the exterior action coexists with the interior life 
and is essential to it. In fact each is correlative 
to the other, and one can not be without the 



74 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

other unless one can suppose the entire field of 
expression to be wiped from the vision, in which 
event there would be small need for any argu- 
ment in favor of either the "I AM" or the "I 
do" factions. So long as there is expression 
there must be an "I do" and an "I AM" behind 
the "I do." 

I, as the "I AM," which means I, strong in 
the consciousness of my oneness with the centre 
of existence from which all things flow, I, at 
this strong centre can establish an activity 
which is greater than the ordinary activity com- 
mon to man. It is a spiritual activity and it 
produces not a sickly puling, white-faced asce- 
tism falsely called spirituality, but a healthy, 
full blooded, muscular, intense, warm, living 
and vital spirituality which is the true thing and 
not its counterfeit. A glorified Humanity with 
God in it instead of out of it comes from the 
all-roundness of vision seeing the "I AM" in 
its relation to the "I do," and then living the 
life which is therein typified, a life strong at 
the centre and free at the circumference. This 
is the life of the perfect human, a life possible 
to vou and to me. 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 75 



LESSON IX, 





Why are you poor in the midst of plenty? 
There must be some reason for it. You may 
think that it lies in the existing order of things, 
but I think it lies in yourself. The existing or- 
der gets blamed more than it deserves. It has 
become a regular scape-goat for the shortcom- 
ings of the individual. In a sense it is respon- 
sible, for it is you and I who make up the ex- 
isting order. Because we are what we are, it 
is what it is. Because we are mentally weak- 
kneed, bow-legged and cross-eyed, we twist up 
the existing order and get it all awry. When 



76 THINKING IN THE HEART; OK, 

we straighten out ourselves, we shall straighten 
also the existing order, for we produce it from 
day to day, from hour to hour. 

Just so long as we place power outside of us 
instead of within, we shall continue in the 
weak-kneed state and get no hold on the Eter- 
nal Energy which lies within us and is ours to 
command. 

Financial independence ought to mean to the 
metaphysician just what the word in-depend- 
ence implies, a dependence on something with- 
in. Instead of that the tendency is to look out- 
side for that which we wish to come to us. 

I believe with Emerson: "He who knows 
that power is inborn, that he is weak because 
he has looked for good out of him and else- 
where, and so perceiving, throws himself un- 
hesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights 
himself, stands in the erect position, commands 
his limbs j works miracles; just as a man who 
stands on his feet is stronger than a man who 
stands on his head." 

I tell you, friends, the existing order of 
things has nothing to do with our misfortunes 
and our poverty. If it had we would not see 
individuals here and there coming up in spite 
of it. Nothing can drag us down but ourselves. 
No circumstance can bold us down if we have 
the will to rise. 



EASY LESSONS IN [REALIZATION. 77 

If you have learned the truth which I have 
tried to inculcate through this series of lessons, 
if you can see yourself as a ray proceeding from 
the Central Energy, if you can realize that in 
that Central Energy all things that you would 
be lie potentially and that you can call them 
forth from within, you are then standing 
squarely on your feet, with head erect, chest 
well up, lungs inflated and power in your right 
hand, ready for action. The existing order of 
things then has no power over you, for whatever 
it may be, you, by your very mental attitude, 
have thus cleared a space for your energies and 
have made a place for yourself in the world's 
activities. 

Picture yourself as standing thus, and so 
great is the power of imagery that before long 
your image will become an external reality. 

You can do this all alone, if you have only a 
crust to eat and your room rent is unpaid. Ill 
luck and apparently insurmountable obstacles 
are only the appliances in life's gymnasium on 
which to increase your mental muscle. Would 
you fall down weakly before such an aid and 
eye it with terror ? You are foolish if you do. 
You have seen a horse tremble with fear at 
sight of a newspaper caught up and swirled by 
the wind, and have, no doubt, smiled at its fool- 
ish fright, but all the while you were subject to 
terrors quite as unsubstantial. 



78 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

Now, look at the star which heads this lesson 
for it illustrates the truth I am endeavoring 
to place firmly in your consciousness, the truth 
of your in-dependence. 

You are in-dependent because the source of 
your dependence lies within, and it is not a little 
isolated spark of being either. It is the 
WHOLE THING. You will never understand 
that, unless you picture it to yourself in the 
form of a radiant figure, like the star which I 
use in these lessons. It has helped me and I 
know it will help you. I used to be just as 
weak-kneed as anyone possibly could be. At 
the age of thirty-one I thought life was all over 
for me. Every ideal and every ambition had * 
failed me. Sorrow, misfortune and ill-health 
crowded hard upon me until I fell into the 
depths of nervous prostration. Just as life 
seemed at the last and lowest ebb, help came 
to me in the form of mental treatment and from 
that time I began to grow in health, in hope 
and in prosperity. 

Knowing what I do, is it strange that I should 
try to help my suffering friends and brothers. 
If I do not make the truth plain enough, tell 
me, and I will try to make it plainer. The dif- 
ficulty is that some of these inner truths which 
we feel so strongly ourselves are difficult to give 
in so many words to others. That is why men- 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 79 

tal treatments are often more effectual than 
volumes of written instruction. The thought 
passes in a hidden pathway from mind to mind, 
and translates itself to the patient in renewed 
hope, in an increase of mental strength, in plans 
for the improvement of conditions and in gen- 
eral health and well-being. 

I am often asked if the radiant centre of Be- 
ing is a reality. It is. It is the only reality. 
It is substance. It is power. 

If you come in contact with any external ob- 
ject, you feel its presence. Well, just so do you 
feel this inner substance of which all external 
objects are the expression. 

It is not found by thinking or reasoning 
about it, but by feeling for it, as a blind man 
would grope for an object. 

Just as I was about to begin upon this lesson 
I came upon the following passage, which I now 
introduce as singularly appropriate : 

"The statues that adorn the bridge of Saint 
Angelo in Rome are reflected in the water be- 
low. As you come upon the banks of the Tiber, 
there on the placid stream are the clear out- 
lines of the old heroic forms; and then as you 
look up, you see the statues standing on their 
pedestals of stone on the bridge above. So hope 
is the reflection in the soul of blessings that are 
above and beyond." 



80 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

In this way the soul dimly senses the presence 
of its radiant centre. It is the reflection of its 
reality in the stream of consciousness. From 
the reflection, one is led to seek for that which 
is so reflected, just as one looks up from the 
banks of the Tiber to the heroic forms on the 
bridge of Saint Angelo. 

And how do you know when you are actually 
in touch with your radiant centre ? You know 
it by the change in your feeling. There comes 
to you an inner warmth and life, a sense of ex- 
pansion as though you were growing wings — 
a delightful vision of approaching freedom, 
a tendency to draw deep, full electrical 
breaths — and, in short, all the sensations of 
a new-born creature: for, indeed, you are 
thus newly born. Old things have passed 
away and all things are become new. You 
stand in a new world of thought and feeling. 
Youth returns to you with all its charm and 
mystery of opening life, and you begin to grow, 
grow, grow, like a beautiful flower from your 
radiant centre. 

Others may seek by much reasoning to un- 
the mystery of Life. It is enough for me to 
live it. I ask no greater joy. And to live it 
one must begin according to the law of Life, * ^J 
and unfold from a centre. From the smallest 
to the greatest organism, this law regulates 
growth and life. All else is a dead mosaic. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATTON. 81 

You are a living organism, but growth may 
be arrested in you and you may need the touch 
of Life. Will it come to you ? Yes. 

The healer can do no more than to arouse 
the dormant energy within yourself, but that 
is something worth doing and quite essential. 
In this lies the value of success treatment. It 
rouses YOU to a FEELING of the POWEE 
WITHIN YOURSELF. THE FEELING is 
the POWEE. So there you are ! If you have 
the FEELING of POWEE you have the 
POWEE. 

POWEE be with you to do and to become all 
that you desire. ALL POWEE IS YOUES. 



82 



THINKING TN THE HEART; OR, 



LESSON X. 




If I were asked by what standard I judge of 
any system of teaching, I must reply that its 
merit is to be estimated by the amount of joy 
it brings to the world. I think there is no bet- 
ter or truer test. All religions, no matter 
though their central thought be self-denial, self- 
sacrifice and penance hold out the hope of a fu- 
ture peace and happiness. Without this they 
would instantly and forever lose all power over 
the hearts of men. 

The fact is, Men make their own religions 
and they make them in accordance with the 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 83 

brain material which they have evolved. Back 
of the minds of men stands the Great Reality, 
but it stands unexpressed to the human con- 
sciousness only so far as that consciousness is 
able to receive, apprehend or interpret. As it 
receives, apprehends and interprets more and 
more clearly the Great Reality of which I 
speak, it is seen to be the source of happiness 
and it is also seen to lay no penance, no suf- 
fering, no sickness, no poverty, no wretchedness 
upon any man. It does not even inflict present 
punishment as a means to future blessedness. 

Whence come, then, the suffering, the sick- 
ness, the poverty and the wretchedness ? They 
are incidents or attendants of growth and mark 
the soul's passage toward the light. I will ven- 
ture to assert on the strength of a law running 
through all nature that every growing thing 
feels pain and lack and oppression in the earlier 
stages of its growth. The little seed says noth- 
ing of the weight of earth upon its bosom or of 
the darkness in which its life is enshrouded, but 
I know it feels them just as we do, only in 
lesser degree. It feels them as unhappy experi- 
ences in its growth, but they are happily all for- 
gotten when it gains its freedom in the air and 
light above. Surely the apotheosis of a plant can 
not be more than that of a human soul, and by 
virtue of compensation a happiness awaits us all 



84 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

commensurate with our pain. It is written on 
all things as well as in our hearts. The hope of 
heaven is as universal as life itself, but our 
greatest mistake has been in placing that heav- 
en too far away. 

This only goes to show the childish belief of 
the race with its tendency to live in the outer 
world and its inability to look within. I can 
well remember the time, for it is not far in the 
past, when I was utterly dependent on the hap- 
penings of a day for my enjoyment. My first 
thought on awaking in the morning was, I 
hope something pleasant will happen to me to- 
day. I looked continually to some external 
stimulus for my happiness, and need I say that 
I was as continually disappointed? Every 
draught of happiness had its bitter dregs which 
I seemed forced to drink, and every flower of 
enjoyment its canker at the heart, so that it 
withered and drooped in my hand. Life seemed 
hard and cruel while over all a grim Deity held 
sway, a Deity whose purpose seemed to beat and 
crush me into subjection to his will. Of course 
it all seemed very wretched, yet I saw no way 
out, and there was nothing left me but to suf- 
fer on. To say that I was rebellious was to put 
it very lightly. The advice of Job's wife, to 
curse God and die, appealed to me as good to 
follow, but what would be the outcome ? There 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 85 

was apparently no way of escape from that ter- 
rible will which cast a blight on all innocent en- 
joyment. I thought with ever increasing dis- 
comfort of that passage in Psalms: " Whither 
shall I go then from th$^y spirit, or whith- 
er shall I flee from thy presence £ If I 
ascend up into heaven thou art there; if I make 
my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I 
take the wings of the morning and dwell in the 
uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy 
hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me. 
If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me: 
even the night shall be made light about me." 

Oh, that dreadful Omnipresence ! How I 
feared and hated it as one might a relentless, 
all-seeing, all-powerful tyrant with whom it was 
impossible to cope and from whom there was no 
escape. The utter hopelessness of my state and 
of a whole world at the mercy of such a ruler 
finally plunged me into the depths of melan- 
cholia, but on that I will not dwell. It was all 
right and good, though grievous at the time. 
By the unerring law of the cosmos I was to 
move, as do all things, from darkness into light. 

If your path is dark, dear friend, it leads to 
the light. Remember the seed, for its experi- 
ence is yours. You are one in the universal pro- 
cess of growth, and what is true of it is true also 
of you. From darkness to light, from pain to 



86 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OR, 

joy. If the seed thinks, and we have yet to 
prove that it does not, it may feel toward the 
darkness and opposing forces which encompass 
and circumscribe its little life something as I 
once felt toward the power which thwarted me 
at every turn and brought me the keenest suf- 
fering. I feel sure that the analogy must hold 
good throughout, and I know that during my 
time of darkness I was wholly unconscious of 
the good to come. 

In his beautiful book, "Five Windows of the 
Soul," Professor Aiken says something of the 
sea-anemone which applies to the subject be- 
fore us and is most suggestive. He says: 

"When you take it out of the sea to bring 
it home, its tentacles are all drawn in, and it is 
a shapeless, slimy lump; but put it in a glass and 
pour in water fresh from the sea, and it will 
presently open out like a flower and gently 
wave its hundred arms. It has no knowledge of 
your presence, nor of its fellow anemone near 
it, nor of the seaweeds and other pretty things 
in the aquarium with it, nor of the sweet tones 
of the piano playing in the room, nor of the 
merry laughter of your children; to it all these 
things are not. The soft feel of the water, its 
gentle motion, perhaps its temperature, too hot 
or too cold, these are the universe to your 
anemone. But drop a small empty shell into the 






EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 87 

water, so that in sinking it will touch the point 
of one tentacle, and instantly that tentacle 
closes on it. The anemone's world has widened. 
It perceives the existence of something which 
is not itself and not the water. And you soon 
find that it perceives also some of the properties 
of that thing; for after clutching it for a second 
or two it relaxes its hold and drops it, whereas 
if you try the same experiment with a piece of 
raw meat, it will clutch tighter and tighter and 
draw the morsel inward toward its mouth, 
which will open and admit it. Should a luckless 
shrimp come in contact with one of the ten- 
tacles, it will be seized in the same way, but as 
it struggles to free itself, other tentacles will 
close in and hold it fast, and altogether your 
anemone will display an energy which it did not 
display when it was dealing with the shell or the 
meat. It perceives not matter only, this time, 
but motion. Assuming, then, that the anemone 
has consciousness, we find that it has perceived 
the existence of matter not itself and of some of 
the properties of matter — resistance, hardness 
or softness and weight, also of motion. So far 
it has penetrated into the mystery of things. 9f 

Now does it not occur to you that our posi- 
tion in this world is very like that of the anem- 
one? Is not our life a continual attempt to 
penetrate the mystery of things ? The anemone 



88 THINKING IN THE HEART; OR, 

in its small way as it reaches out with its ten- 
tacles and touches the things of its narrow 
world is realizing just as truly as are we who are 
reaching inward after that which is unseen, but 
none the less real. And as the anemone is un- 
conscious of the music of the piano and the mer- 
ry voices of the children, so are we in the pres- 
ence of wondrous and beautiful things which 
we know not. If our senses were fine enough, 
we might see and know much that is now vir- 
tually non-existent to us, for like the anemone 
that grasps the meat and the shrimp, the while 
unconscious of the music or the children's 
voices, so do we touch but little of the world 
about us. 

As the world of the anemone widens, so does 
ours. In both it is a growth in realization. It 
is touching more of the outer and inner world. 
The anemone does not think as we think, and 
yet it distinguishes between the objects in its 
world of consciousness. It knows that the shell 
is not the meat and that the meat is not the 
shrimp, although it can not spell the names we 
have given to each. How does it know ? It re- 
alizes the thing itself and not its name as so 
many of us are in the habit of doing. To real- 
ize is to make real, and whether we seek the 
inner life or the outer, we should make our 
world more real through feeling, through com- 
ing in actual touch with it. 



EASY LESSONS IN KEALIZATION. 89 

I have seen a simple soul filled with a joy and 
peace which a brighter intellect might envy and 
seek in vain. The simpler soul had found that 
which no argument reveals and no process of 
reasoning brings closer to the perception. 

Does it require an argument to prove to you 
that you exist ? Can any word or series of words 
convey to you the fact of your existence ? IsTo ! 
You simply feel that you exist. You may have 
reached that feeling through a long line of ex- 
periences in which thought played an important 
role, still the result of it all is a feeling just the 
same, and that feeling is realization. 

Starting with a realization of your own be- 
ing, which realization you possess now, is it so 
difficult a matter to extend that realization and 
see that being of yours widen and widen until it 
exceeds all your past conceptions ? Can you not 
imagine yourself on the inner side opening into 
the deeps of infinity as a river opens into the 
ocean ? To think about it will aid you in believ- 
ing it possible, but the only thing which will 
make it real is to reach out as does the anemone 
with the tentacles of your spirit in order to feel 
or experience or touch that which you seek. 
That, and that alone, is realization. 

I have said again and again that thought 
without feeling avails nothing in the establish- 
ment of health and happiness. I can not em- 



90 THINKING IN THE HEART; OE, 

phasize that fact too strongly, for it is all-im- 
portant in the attainment of improved mental 
and physical conditions. Feeling is of the heart, 
and the heart is the centre of life. From it pro- 
ceed the issues of life. We make a distinction 
between a hearty welcome and a merely civil 
one. Both involve thought, but the former 
also involves feeling, while the latter does not. 
And why do we say hearty (heart-y) ? Because 
it comes from the heart and is therefore full of 
life. 

Let me illustrate still further. Not long ago 
I had a business transaction with a person who 
claimed $25 more than I believed to be her due. 
The result was an argument in which neither 
was convinced. 

I positively knew that I had justice on my 
side, and so one day I sat down at my desk in a 
judicial mood. I felt every fibre of my nature 
hardening in the interest of justice and I dipped 
my pen in ink to write page after page in justi- 
fication of my own position. Suddenly, without 
warning and apparently without cause, my 

mood softened, and I wrote : Dear , Tou 

are right. The $25 is yours. Here is my check 
for the amount. Tours with love, ." 

ISTow I never shall forget the delicious happi- 
ness that stole over me as I enclosed the check 
and sealed the letter. It was as though a heav- 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 91 

enly benediction had descended upon my spirit 
and it was worth a thousand times that paltry 
twenty-five dollars. 

But why did I say "You are right. The $25 
is yours V 9 Simply because I felt that down 
somewhere in the subconscious stratum of our 
natures there is registered a different account 
from that which shows upon the pages of our 
daybooks and our ledgers, and in that subcon- 
scious account it may be seen that some of the 
things which seem to belong to us really belong 
to others. The heart may know more than the 
mind does about that hidden account, and in 
that case feeling can move us to the deepest, 
truest ends of justice. And had I not said: 
"You are right. " Had I said: "You are wrong, 
but I will send you my check to end the dis- 
cussion/' I should have placed a canker in my 
note which would have eaten all the love out 
of it and taken away the joy it was to carry to 
another heart. I speak of this to show the dif- 
ference between thought and feeling. I thought 
the $25 was mine, but I felt that it belonged to 
another. 

Who shall say that this prompting of my 
heart was not a forecast of that day of brother- 
hood, when we shall not draw hard and fast 
lines about ourselves, our rights and our pos- 
sessions ? If we desire the pulsing life from the 



92 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OR, 

heart of the universe, we must become one with 
it, and we can not become one with it while we 
shut our brothers from our hearts. You see 
when I made the interests of another my own 
and covered her need with my supply, the Spirit 
of Life gave me benediction. In fulfilling the 
law of Life more Life was poured out upon me. 
The law of Life is Love. 

The diagram at the head of this lesson is a 
flower. It as truly represents a radiant centre 
as does the star, and it was suggested by these 
lines in Edward Carpenter's "Love's Coming of 
Age." He speaks of his belief in "a society to 
which we all in our inmost selves consciously or 
unconsciously belong — the Rose of sotils that 
Dante beheld in Paradise, whose every petal is 
an individual, and an individual only through 
its union with all the rest — the early Church's 
dream of an eternal Fellowship in heaven and 
on earth; the Prototype of all the brotherhoods 
and communities that exist on this or any 
planet. The innumerable selves of men, united 
in the one Self, members of it and of one anoth- 
er (like the members of the body) stand in eter- 
nal and glorious relationship bound indissolubly 
together." 

In concluding these lessons, I have changed 
the diagram from the star to the figure of the 
flower, because I wished to throw a more defi- 



EASY LESSONS IN REALIZATION. 93 

nite and living beauty into the conception of 
oneness, for while the star itself radiates life in 
the form of light, this is not fully expressed in 
a geometrical design upon paper. Nothing ap- 
peals to the heart and stirs it to new life like an 
organized form of beauty, and the thought of 
unfolding like a flower from the centre of Di- 
vinity, must be an incentive to better and more 
beautiful action. The form, the color, the 
aroma of a flower delight us through the 
senses it is true, but at the same time there is 
a subtle and unrecognized appeal to the inner 
life, because the still small voice of Divinity is 
saying through the flower: "Behold Me in this 
my symbol. I AM at the centre and I AM at 
the circumference. I AM God at the centre of 
the rose, I AM Man in its petals, and beside ME 
there is none." 

To feel this, dear friends, is the first step in 
realization. It is not so difficult a thing. We 
are accustomed to look upon the things ex- 
ternal, which can be seen and touched, as real, 
and the unseen things as unreal, while just the 
reverse is true. We have developed crude 
senses by which we see and touch these external 
things and it remains for us to develop finer 
senses by which we feel the inner things. A 
seer once said: "The things which are seen are 
temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
eternal." 



OCT i? 1*02 



94 THINKING IN THE HEAKT; OK, 

Realization means, to draw the externalized 
consciousness back to the centre where it 
touches or is conscious of the spirit of power. 
It means to remain calm and serene at that cen- 
tre while also reaching out in healthful activ- 
ity. To reach this place in consciousness, so 
peaceful, so masterful, so creative, so blessed, 
is the entire end and aim of these lessons in Re- 
alization. They may seem to my readers very 
much like a tune that is played on one string, 
with but little variation, and indeed they are so, 
for I well know the devious and wandering 
paths by which so many are striving to escape 
from the tangled labyrinth of many leadings. 
A definite, short cut is needed, straight out of 
the woods. I came upon it and it led me out. 
"Now I would place a signboard, pointing the 
way to others. With my whole soul I believe 
there is no necessity for unhappiness, for fail- 
ure, for poverty or disease, and I as fully be- 
lieve that the day is at hand when every soul 
shall recognize its own divinity and dwell in 
majesty at the centre of Being, controlling cir- 
cumstance and radiant with Life and Power. 



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